- FLACKBACK -

"Thank you for your time, Ms Kim. We'll.... think about it and keep you posted," a masked man with brown sleeked back hair said in a deep voice before passing a tiny black object safely back to the lady.

Solar was not at the very least, impressed with his amateur response. It was way too predictable, he was not interested in her proposals. None of the men sitting across the table were. Even though her perfectionistic self ensured that all the documents offered in the thumbdrive were meticuously planned and refined several times by the most capable professionals in her company, she knew these men were not here to understand them. These pea brains might not have even understood anything she was proposing during the last hour as they were just a bunch of puppets their organisations sent to be representatives on their behalf. It was obvious the companies intentionally sent incompetent people to sit there, listen and then politely reject the proposal unless specifically ordered to do otherwise by superiors. She might be a first-timer, but she was not as gullible as they thought.

"What a joke. Sending these losers for such a classified forum?! Appa really has to rethink the organistional liaisons he wants to have if they have terrible work ethics. How unprofessional," she criticised them in her head but still maintaining a professional poker face.

She knew these fools were here for something else, judging by the dirty glances she caught, witnessing them grossly gawking at her exposed chest. All thanks to the most gorgeous Victorian white gown she was wearing; she looked way too y and mature for her age.

As much as she hated to be here, she was certain she still needed to secure this vital business deal or this entire meeting would have been a total waste of time and resources. On top of that, this was the first task her Appa has entrusted her with after she joined the company under his wing and her prideful self just would not let this fail. She cannot let Appa down. Not today, not tonight. She knew she had to change her strategy.

Slowly, almost seductively, she walked gracefully over to the latter sitting across the table and stopped right beside his chair, while purposefully resting her arm on the man's shoulder. She felt his shoulder tense up at the pressure of her rested arms and she could not help but smirk at his reaction. Naughty Solar was trying out a little experiment.

Swish! She nonchalantly grabbed her prized possession back from the man and teasingly waved it around her chest area while suggestively biting onto her lip. Now smirking even wider than before at the sight of the lustful men around her all subconsciously gawking at directly behind the thumbdrive, she knew the power shifted over to her.

"How foolish. I've got you all under my control now."

"Very well, but remember: this is a limited time offer, I'm sure you'll not want to miss out on this," Solar subtly challenged the more senior masked man beside her, exerting slight dominance as she bent over so that she could take a closer look at his face.

In reality, she never actually wanted to look into his eyes but she needed to be close enough so that he could lose self control when her exposed chest were right below his eye level. Sure enough, he absolutely lost his sh*t! His jaw dropped at the sight of it and his eyes went wild with lust. He could not control himself any longer and gave in to the y younger lady's charms.

"So.. what do you say?" Solar whispered with a soft husky voice right into the man's ear and moved her rested hand down his chest to stop at his thigh.

"Ah... DEAL! I'll let my CEO approve this right away!" the man exclaimed desperately as he finally gave up and surrendered to his new 'master', with his cheeks flushed in a shade of pink.

"It was nice doing business with you, sir. Send my regards to your boss," she whispered one last time while she caressed the man's thigh teasingly before strutting out of the room fashionably like a model on the runway.

As soon as the doors closed behind her, Solar immediatey broke character and snickered to herself like a witch. Being terribly narcissistic in nature, Solar had never been so proud of herself in her life. She single-handedly secured the special business deal and even had all the men in the room mouth-water at her. That's pretty impressive, especially walking out of the hungry lion's den alive after being trapped inside for what felt like the longest hour of her life!

"Daddy's gonna be so proud!!!" she mocked in English cheekily as she mimicked popular cheesy lines of what sterotypically rich girls in movies would say at a time like this.

Despite her innocent and humble exterior, Solar was so much more than that. Correction, she went through so much more than anyone could have ever imagine. She instinctively knew exactly how to emotionally manipulate people and use their weaknesses against them. She knew how to read microexpressions and cues to see through someone's lies, especially predictable old thirsty men who she despised so much.

She hated their guts, all of them. She hated how dirty they made her feel when they gazed at her. She hated how cocky they get when they try to order her around just because she looked like a push-over. She hated how they assumed women are always beneath them. Not anymore.

All that was in the past, all of that was Kim Yongsun. She's Solar now: the strong, no-nonsense and witty alter ego she created to mask her dreadful traumatic past experiences that nobody knew about. Nobody could have known, nobody needed to know and nobody will. 
 

Upon leaving the secret discussion room, she stared intently at the thumbdrive in her palm and gave it a gentle kiss. Don't for one moment underestimate the tiny thumbdrive as its contents were highly confidential, some might have even been illegal hacked information and documents about the industry's latest information about AIs. 

Mr Kim had a lot of connections with secret organisations and would trade top secret industry secrets and data in exchange for investments of billions of dollars in SMART Kim Global in return. The thumbdrive might be small and seem insignificant but holds a massive volume of information that can get hundreds and thousands of people jailed if it were ever found out. 

Hence, Solar was the perfect girl for today's task. Just like the thumbdrive, she could easily deceive the organisation representatives with her innocent looks before she uses all of their weaknesses against them.  

"We did it! Mission accomplished! Now... back to my party," Solar thought as she quickly shoved the black object safely into one of the pockets and went back to her ballroom.

The annual AI parties are mandatory, private and seen as sacred to rich and people of high status in the AI industry. These parties were extremely exclusive and only organisations which have been specifically invited will be able to attend them. Only the top of the chain would enter these party doors and even so, the organisations are only allowed to send one representative each to attend or send a mandatory gift basket back if they choose to decline the invitation. 

At these prestious parties, party hosts usually come up with creative methods of checking guests' entry proofs, but all done very subtly to avoid public attention and any media coverage. Some parties made their guests wear specific gadgets, colours, patterns or whisper verbal passwords to the bouncers at the door. This time, Solar wanted to her first party hosting to be spectacular so she gave it a Victorian theme instead. Guests were required to wear Victorian ages clothing as a dress code to enter the premises of her grand ballroom party.

Unknown to the regular AI party attendees, there was something darker behind these parties and why they are so 'sacred'. These AI parties were also secret makeshift gatherings for anything the party hosts planned for. Depending on the party host, the guests will always be distracted at the party venue while the real secret gathering happens in another smaller room under the same roof. It was one of the rich people's mind deception games they played as every party would be hiding something that the public should not know about and even the party attendees present would be entirely clueless. In the past, these parties were just cover-ups for the host to sell illegal substances, set up secret rinks, sell dark web contents and more. The police would never find anything suspicious as they would usually be planned a year in advance and have strong liaison with secret organisations to silence people who might leak any information to the public. 

This time, it was Solar's turn to host. Mr. Kim intended the party to be a cover up for selling illegal information to secret organisations and successfully make a deal with at least one of them by the end of the night. Mr Kim knew several high status government officials and secret society leaders. Thus, Solar's masterplan was to get everyone to wear masks so that nobody would be able to make out any of these famous people's masked faces. The Masquerade idea came as a no brainer to get her VIP guests to safely and smoothly come in with the crowd and leave unnoticed. 

"How's the decorations coming along?" Solar asked her party's event manager upon reaching the ballroom.

"About done, Ms Kim! So... how did it go?" Chorong asked in curiosity as Solar gave her an affirming nod.

"It was as successful as expected," Solar boasted proudly to the other girl as a smile grew on her face at the delightful news.

Chorong wanted to gave Solar a huge high five at the moment in pure excitement but she knew she had to keep a straight face and low profile. Now that Solar is out of the discussion room, who knows who is secretly spying on their conversation at the very moment or if any of the crew members setting up the place wire-tapped anything in the room. They knew too well not to show any reactions or real emotions at such parties as you will never know who is your enemy or if anything was a set-up.

"Solar ssi, a lady is at the door and requested to have a word with you," one of Solar's bouncers said while approaching her.

"So early? The party doesn't start until another half an hour. My guests are usually fashionably late. Who is this?" Solar asked but only to answer her own question when the other bouncer escorted a beautiful lady in a full black gown over to her.

"Hello, welcome to the Kim Palace... and you are?" Solar said as she instantaneously switched her bossy tone into a gentler and friendlier party host tone.

"Hello, I'm sorry for intruding your preparations. I was going to stay outside and wait for the doors to open later but I guess one of your kind man let me in. I'm a representative from Music Magic Inc. You can call me.... Hwasa. I think I must have gotten the timing wrong, my apologies," the shorter guest politely apologised for her unannounced intrusion into the hosts' house.

"Oh, Hwasa? What a lovely name! Don't worry about it, it's not intruding at all. Please help yourself with some wine a